Call Center Software: The Possibilities are Endless

Written by GSET Publishing

The call center represents your first line of communication with customers and potential customers. Whether you choose to outsource this service or to establish an in-company call center, this is one area in which quality is paramount and cannot be compromised. Clients’ questions and concerns need to be dealt with courteously and effectively, and sales calls require careful handling - as some members of public have grown wary of unsolicited calls due to sheer bulk of such calls that they receive, it is imperative that these interactions are very embodiment of tact, timing and effective communication. This is a tall order, but increasingly, there is software available that is tailor made to fill it.

Of course, key to an first-rate call center has always been, and remains, effective human communication. That having been said, though, there are also many problems that can be solved by technology. In many cases, right software can increase efficiency of your call center so that many repetitive tasks are streamlined or even eliminated. Outgoing calls can be made much more efficiently, so that callers spend most of their time in actual communication with clients and potential clients on other end of line. The real value of any call center lies in personalities and communication skills of personnel; technology helps us display and utilize these assets. For example, software programs that allow us to use predictive or automated dialing free caller from this repetitive and time consuming task. Call center software can set up voice messaging for direct marketing, leaving automated messages on voice mail and answering machines that are reached by this method. When a live voice answers, call is transferred automatically to an agent. Think of time this can save - call center employees are called into action only when they are needed. Studies show that there is little difference in customer response to an automated answering machine message as opposed to a live one, as long as automated message is clear, concise and informative. Of course, in live communication, human quality of call makes all difference. Call center software organizes things so that human ability is not wasted, but used to full capacity, without putting undue stress on employee.

The Future of RSS is Not Blogs

Written by S. Housley

Blogs vaulted RSS into limelight but are unlikely to be force that sustains RSS as a communication medium. The biggest opportunities for RSS are not in blogosphere but as a corporate communication channel.

Even now, businesses that were initially reluctantly evaluating RSS are beginning to realize power and benefit of RSS information avenue. The inherent capacity for consumers to select content they wish to receive will be driving mechanism for keeping advertisements to a minimum and content quality consistent.

Like Internet when it first started, blogs were emboldened by "cool factor". As novelty of being new and cool wears off, Internet webmasters and bloggers alike are realizing that maintaining a website or blog is time-consuming. "Coolness" often wears off if a channel is not monetized. With ease of blogging and array of blogs available, only a handful will be able to sustain fresh, constant, unique content and generate any sort of reasonable or significant revenue. As a result, blogs as we know them today will fade into background, with many blogs being abandoned.

RSS, being a tool that saves Internet surfers time and allows webmasters to re-purpose and re-package existing and new content will, in my opinion, continue to thrive. A business effectively using RSS can bring new site visitors, increase search engine positioning, and generate product interest. The flexibility of RSS as a communication medium and expansion capabilities of enclosure tag will allow RSS to flourish as an online marketing tool. Each day businesses are adopting new uses for RSS, and users are becoming accustomed to skimming content that *they* choose in a single centralized location.